I think this might answer questions around fatigue and how players turned their form around. From JL's presser:
You mentioned you guys had a bit of fun leading up to the game and the joke at Belly’s expense. What can you tell us on that front?
Sometimes you get so busy in footy and one week rolls into the next, sometimes you just need to take a little bit of a back step and have a bit of fun. It’s been grueling. Like I said, it starts being grueling last five, six weeks, and now we're down on staff and half the playing group or some of the playing group is not with us. They're out of quarantine. So you just have to have some light moments. Our players are pretty good at that. But yeah, coaches can get better, not saying my gags are any good, by the way.
Just letting the players relax a bit and have fun instead of grinding out the season is a big part of retaining the enjoyment that leads to team success, something I think has been forgotten by the "Business Model" coaches.
Their have been some negative comments around Liam Henry grubbering kicks in yesterdays game, I thought at least 3 of those, and that may have been all he "miskicked", were intentionally done to provide a smaller player an advantage in our forward 50. When we went in high, too often we were outmarked, and he seemed to deliberately fire the footy along the turf.
